Cookie policy

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. food.gov.uk puts small files (known as ‘cookies’) onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.

Cookies are used to:

- measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
- remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again

Cookies on food.gov.uk aren’t used to identify you personally.

Managing cookies

All major browsers allow you to switch off and manage the cookies. To find out how to use these options, please follow the appropriate link for your browser:

- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Edge
- Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Mozilla Firefox
- Apple Safari

You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by installing this add-on.

Find out more about how to manage cookies.

How cookies are used on food.gov.uk

SessionID

**Name:** JSESSIONID and PHPSESSID\
**Purpose:** These cookies are used to maintain an anonymous user session by the server.\
**Expires:** Expires after the end of the user session

Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use food.gov.uk. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

Google Analytics stores information about:

- the pages you visit
- how long you spend on each page
- how you got to the site
- what you click on while you’re visiting the site

We don’t allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

**Universal Analytics**

**Name:** \_ga\
**Purpose:** This helps us count how many people visit food.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited before\
**Expires:** 2 years

**Name:** \_gid\
**Purpose:** This helps us count how many people visit food.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited before\
**Expires:** 24 hours (3 days for the 'register a food business' service)

**Name:** \_gat\
**Purpose:** Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made. This cookie does not store any user information,\
**Expires:** The expiry settings are set by Google

**Name:** acceptAllCookies\
**Purpose:** Used to remember whether or not you clicked accept or don’t accept for optional cookies\
**Expires:** 25 days

**Name:** connect.sid\
**Purpose:** Used to persist registration data through the 'register a food business' service\
**Expires:** 24 hours

**Google Analytics**

**Name:** \_utma\
**Purpose:** Like \_ga, this lets us know if you’ve visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new to food.gov.uk or to a certain page\
**Expires:** 2 years

**Name:** \_utmb\
**Purpose:** This works with \_utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on food.gov.uk\
**Expires:** 30 minutes

**Name:** \_utmc\
**Purpose:** This works with \_utmb to calculate when you close your browser\
**Expires:** when you close your browser

**Name:** \_utmz\
**Purpose:** This tells us how you reached food.gov.uk (for example from another website or a search engine)\
**Expires:** 6 months **SitelImprove**

**Name:** nmstat\
**Purpose:** statistics about site usage such as when you last visited the site\
**Typical content:** randomly generated number\
**Expires:** 1000 days after last visit

**Name:** siteimproveses\
**Purpose:** Used to track the sequence of pages you look at during a visit to the site.\
**Expires:** when user exits browser

**Name:** szcookiechoice\
**Purpose:** Used to determine if you have accepted or declined cookies.\
**Expires:** when user exits browser

**Cloudflare**

**Name:** \_\_cfduid\
**Purpose:** Set by the CloudFlare to identify trusted web traffic. It does not correspond to any user id in the web application, nor does the cookie store any personally identifiable information.\
**Expires:** 5 years

[Further details on cookies set by Cloudflare.](#)

**Surveymonkey**

Sometimes we conduct online surveys to help us better meet our customers’ needs. We use SurveyMonkey to collect responses to the survey. If you take part, SurveyMonkey will save extra cookies to your computer to track your progress through it.

**Name:** mbox, SSOE, TS5159a2 and TSd0b041, ep201, ep202, utma, utmc and utmz\
**Purpose:** Online surveys on food.gov.uk.

[View SurveyMonkey's privacy policy.](#)

**Logging in to our services**

Once you have logged on with username and password, so you don't have to do it for every webpage you request from our service.

**Name:** AUTH_TOKEN\
**Expires:** when user exits browser

**Food labelling elearning course (food.gov.uk/labellingtraining)**

**Name:** aModulesVisited\
**Purpose:** Used to persist a record of user progress so we can give an indication of which modules have been visited.

**MyHACCP web tool (food.gov.uk/myhaccp)**

**Name:** SESS[Unique ID]\
**Purpose:** Allows logging in and interacting with the MyHACCP service. Essential for MyHACCP site functionality. Expires: 23 days

Third party cookies

YouTube cookies

We use YouTube to provide videos on some pages of the site. YouTube sets cookies when you visit one of these pages.

Name: use_hitbox Purpose: randomly generated number that identifies your browser Expires: when you close your browser

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE Purpose: Lets Youtube count the views of embedded Youtube videos Expires: 9 months

Further details on the cookies set by YouTube.

Facebook cookies

Name: datr Expires: 2 years

Name: lsd Expires: when user exits browser

Name: reg_ext_ref Expires: when user exits browser

Name: reg_fb_gate Expires: when user exits browser

Name: reg_fb_ref Expires: when user exits browser

Name: wd Expires: when user exits browser

Name: x-referer Expires: when user exits browser

Twitter cookies

Twitter may use both session cookies and persistent cookies to improve their service including understanding user interaction, monitor aggregate usage and web traffic routing.

Name: k Typical content: randomly generated number Expires: 1 week Name: guest_id Typical content: randomly generated number Expires: 1 month

Name: original_referer Typical content: randomly generated number Expires: when user exits browser

Name: external_referer Typical content: randomly generated number Expires: 24 hrs

Name: \_twitter_sess Typical content: randomly generated number Expires: when user exits browser

Name: js Typical content: randomly generated number Expires: 1 month

View the Twitter privacy policy